Wednesday, August 7, 2013

The Sundering continues....with Isteval

Late last year I designed a new character for Jon Schindehette at D&D. He was to be named Isteval. The writers at D&D provided me with an awesome description of an old paladin who's glory days were well behind him now, yet he still had some stature and pride.

Isteval Concept Art

Ultimately he was to be part of a large lineup of characters for the next Sundering adventure for Forgotten Realms. This was another layered image containing many characters I had addressed in some other covers for D&D as well as a few new ones.

The Sundering - Make Your Story Legend

Each character had to be on its own layer, very much like the previous Sundering image I created. Here are a few shots of some of the layers as well as a few closeups. The full image ended up being pretty enormous. I had a blast working on this one.

I also had to go into some detail for the stained glass window in the background.

The Sundering Stained Glass

Finally, the crew at D&D ended up putting together some pretty amazing stuff. They had a cinematic video created that featured Isteval in full 3 dimensional action walking around in a scene which also contained my stained glass window. I was completely floored when I saw all this. I never imagined my character coming to life like this. Huge thanks and congratulations to everyone at D&D that made this happen.

Amazing work, sir! I love characters like this who have history and a past.

I play online MMOs now, having 'retired' from DMing, and one thing these games lack is the option to create a truly grizzled veteran. Maybe, just maybe, the game companies will stop pandering to the 'youth' of the gaming world and realise that some of us would like to have in game representations nearer our own age and not the usual anime hunky heart throb lookalike.

I've been using audible to listen to the sundering. I must have listened to 300 hours so far and can't seem to get enough. I would definitely agree that your art brings the characters to life. Good Luck with future art